Category: On Writing

When James Patterson Is Your Co-Author

It’s News Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done. This week: Lunch with Andrew Gross, author of The One Man (no, it’s not about James Patterson.)

As bestselling author, Andrew Gross tells it, he was sitting in his den, after double-digit rejections of his first novel by agents and publishers, and wondering “what cliff to drive our SUV off” when his phone rang and the voice on the other end asked him if he would take a call from James Patterson. Continue reading “When James Patterson Is Your Co-Author”

Using Google To Walk the Mean Streets

It’s News Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done. This week: British Author Watched YouTube to Study Queens (New York) Accent

Today’s Squib continues a topic I started a couple of weeks ago as a Behind the Scenes segment for authors who are researching locations for their novels. I wrote that like bestselling author James Patterson, I am all in favor of researching a location on foot. Nowadays, however, an author does not have to stir very far from his/her laptop or keyboard. Continue reading “Using Google To Walk the Mean Streets”

News Squib: For Writers Who Procrastinate (And That’s Most of Us)

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week: How to Stop Procrastinating by Going To Lunch

 

From l to r: Marilyn Murray Willison, Sonia Cooper, Cathy Helowicz (PBWG Executive Director), and Me at Chesterfield Hotel, Palm Beach

If there is one thing writers love it’s to listen to advice on how to stop procrastinating long enough to finish their novels or screenplays. Give them the opportunity to listen to such advice over a long, leisurely lunch, and most writers will leap at it. I certainly did when I got an invitation to attend the Palm Beach Writers Group talk and lunch at the Chesterfield Hotel’s Pavilion Room this week. The subject of the talk by PBAU English professor and writer, Dr. Gene Fant?  How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating and Love Deadlines. Continue reading “News Squib: For Writers Who Procrastinate (And That’s Most of Us)”

News Squib: Language Rules: Why You Are A Silly Old Fool & Not An Old Silly Fool?

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done– this week: The Language Rules We All Know But Don’t Know We Know

I came across an English language rule (actually two of them) this week that I had never learned in more than 60 years of studying and using the language.  The information came to me courtesy of my brother Michael in Prague. He sent me a link to a story that appeared in BBC Magazine last year about a tweet that went viral from BBC Culture editor (@MattAndersonBBC) who copied a paragraph from a book titled The Elements of Eloquence. Continue reading “News Squib: Language Rules: Why You Are A Silly Old Fool & Not An Old Silly Fool?”

When Your Characters Take Control of Your Novel (Behind the Scenes#3)

Crumple Paper, Notebook And Pen With Cup Of CoffeeBehind the Scenes is a series of occasional posts about my efforts to write a new thriller (working title, Book 3) and about the challenges, setbacks — and perks — of returning to a writing life. Today, the second of two parts from Robert McKee’s Story seminar: How and Why Your Characters Take Control of Your Novel — And What It Really Means 

If you talk to (or read the blogs of) enough authors, pretty soon you’ll find one or two, or a dozen who will swear that their characters make the decisions as to the plotting of their novels. I never believed in this type of literary hijacking – until it happened to me, and I was able to weave in an entire subplot into Book 3 as a result.

But it wasn’t until story guru, Robert Mckee explained the phenomenon that I understood what had happened. Continue reading “When Your Characters Take Control of Your Novel (Behind the Scenes#3)”